"That"s Captain," said Captain Colon. "See the pip on my shoulder, Reg?"
Reg looked closely. "I thought it was bird doings, Barge."
"That"s Captain," said Colon automatically. "It"s only chalk now because I ain"t got time to get it done properly," he said. "So don"t be cheeky."
"What"s up with Nobby?" said Reg. Corporal Nobbs was holding a damp cloth over one eye.
"Bit of a contry tomps with an illegally parked troll," said Captain Colon.
"Shows what kind of troll he was, striking a lady," muttered Nobby.
"But you ain"t a lady, Nobby. You"re just wearing your traffic-calming disguise."
"He wasn"t to know."
"You"d got your helmet on. Anyway, you shouldn"t have clamped him."
"He was parked, Fred."
"He"d been knocked down by a cart," said Captain Colon. "And that"s captain."
"Well, they always have excuses," said Nobby sullenly.
"You"d better show us the corpus, Reg," said Colon.
The body in the cellar was duly inspected.
"... and I remember Cheery saying there was a smell of cat"s pee and sulphur at the Dwarf Bread Museum," said Reg.
"Certainly hangs about," said Colon. "You wouldn"t have blocked sinuses if you worked here for a day."
"And I thought, "I wonder if someone"d tried to make a mould of the replica Scone", sir," said Reg.
"Now that is clever," said Fred Colon. "You"d get
the real one back then, wouldn"t you?"
"Er, no, Sarge - Captain. But you"d get a copy of the. replica."
"Would that be legal?"
"Can"t say, sir. I wouldn"t think so. It wouldn"t fool a dwarf for five minutes."
"Then who"d want to kill him?"
"A father of thirteen kids, maybe?" said Nobby. "Haha."
"Nobby, will you stop pinching the merchandise?" said Colon. "And don"t argue, I just saw you put a couple of dozen in your handbag."
"Dat don"t matter," rumbled the troll. "Mister Sonky always said dey was free to the Watch."
"That was very... civic of him," said Captain Colon. "Yeah, he said der last frog we wanted was more bloody coppers around the city."
A pigeon chose that diplomatic moment to flutter into the factory and land on Colon"s shoulder, where it promoted him. Colon reached up, removed the message capsule and unfolded the contents.
"It"s from Visit," he said. "There"s a Clue, he says."
"What to?" said Nobby.